After-school molester to be sentenced

A former volunteer at a San Diego elementary school’s after-school program who molested one of the program’s students several times last year will be sentenced Thursday.

Richard Davila, 23, who volunteered for the PrimeTime after-school program at Washington Elementary School, pleaded guilty in July to four felony counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under the age of 14.

Prosecutors said Davila molested a 10-year-old boy in a supply closet several times between September 2012 and January 2013. He was arrested in February and originally pleaded not guilty before changing his plea in July.

As part of his arrangement with prosecutors, Davila agreed to serve eight years in prison.

Davila also faces federal child pornography charges stemming from this case, as investigators said they discovered sexually explicit images involving minor boys on his laptop after his arrest.

Meanwhile, an attorney for the victim’s family, which filed a claim against the school district shortly after Davila’s arrest, said he will likely sue the district after the criminal matter is closed.

The civil claim, which the school district rejected in March, alleged that the district and its PrimeTime Partner at Washington Elementary, S.A.Y. San Diego, failed to act when warned that Davila was “providing an extraordinary amount of attention and spending time alone” with the child during PrimeTime hours.

The U-T is not identifying the family because to do so would identify a child victim. The attorney representing the family said that the family had put its civil pursuit on hold to allow the criminal case to be resolved.

“The family didn’t want to do anything jeopardize the criminal case,” attorney Jonathan Musgrove said. “As soon as that wraps we are moving forward with our action.”

Musgrove would not elaborate on the type of warning that was given to PrimeTime in regards to Davila’s contact with the student.

The San Diego Unified School District partners with several nonprofit groups to provide the after-school care, including the YMCA, Harmonium and SAY (Social Advocates for Youth) San Diego. The program has 16,697 students at 132 of the district’s schools.

At Washington, SAY San Diego operated the program, and Davila — a volunteer — had just begun serving the Washington site at the start of the 2012 school year.

School officials and SAY representatives said that Davila passed multiple background checks. San Diego Unified does not require fingerprinting for volunteers like Davila, who are supposed to have little or no unsupervised contact with students, but SAY does requires it of all volunteers and employees.

SAY Executive Director Michael Carr said that its policy prohibits volunteers like Davila from having one-to-one interaction with students, and that staff members are supposed to be able to see all students at all times.

Davila, Carr said, had been admonished earlier in the year for sitting down with the students when assisting them with their homework, which was one of his duties at the site. “Homework Helpers,” as they are called, are supposed to stand up away from the tables and students are supposed to approach them with questions.